News digest 30 June 2014

There’s a continued political spin to the day’s papers with prime minister David Cameron writing in the Telegraph about how his failed bid to stop Jean Claude Juncker’s selection as EU Commission head was really not a failure [rather it was a very serious error of judgment going so public]. It’s also bad news for the Lib Dems with the Mail saying the party faces a police probe over ‘cash for peerages’ allegations [about time we had an elected second chamber – remind me who messed that up?] while a number of papers continue to go for Labour leader Ed Miliband after some off the cuff comments from Jon Cruddas that a ‘profound dead hand’ within the party is blocking more radical reforms. There’s a good piece by Owen Jones in the Guardian calling on a challenge to the political consensus and a need to be bold, and that echoes the call from Unite general secretary Len McCluskey who writes in the Morning Star and is interviewed in the Mirror ahead of the Unite Police Conference in Liverpool which started this morning. Making his keynote address this morning Len outlined that working people, unions and the NHS are facing the `fight of our lives’ to see off a Tory government in 2015, which if elected would will set about destroying the remaining rights and freedoms of ordinary working people. Said Len McCluskey: “The most important challenge Unite will face over the next eleven months is winning next year’s general election. There is a time to have heated arguments within the Labour party about policy. There is even a time to discuss the future of the party itself, but that time is not now. We have a clear and vital choice before us. It’s whether we can evict the present ruinous Conservative coalition from office and get a Labour prime minister into Downing Street. There is no third option. … Unite stands fully behind Labour and Ed Miliband in the increasingly radical agenda he has outlined. It’s a people’s agenda and this union will be proud to fight alongside Labour to secure it.” see http://www.clearstreamlive.com/unite/...